September 2017

If we didn’t have to fit GPS loggers to three tawaki today, I would almost say that we had one of the coolest tourist experiences in Milford Sound you can ask for.

First, another cruise of the fjord with the Southern Discoveries Lady Stirling. And I am pleased to report that our Tawaki fact sheet has become a permanent display on board of the Southern Discoveries boats.

As the DC staff close shop at 4pm, we had arranged for our team to spend the night in Harrison Cove as we’re almost certainly will not have fitted devices to three birds before that. Most penguin only start to return to their nests in the late afternoon.

So, our mode of transport to the cove today were sea kayaks which we casually paddled over to the penguin colony just before 3pm. The weather was gorgeous, the water was as crystal clear as it is advertised (just a heads up, it’s not always as clear) and the paddle pleasant. Water falls were tumbling down the sheer fjord walls in Harrison Cove and from the forests bellbird and tui calls echoed over the water. As did the commentary of one of the many cruise boats, telling its passengers that you can age tawaki by the size of their crest… and ageing method I certainly haven’t heard of before.

Over the next four hours, Robin and Giselle managed to deploy the three logger packages we had prepared for the day. I just watched and enjoyed the ride and relayed the messages of arriving penguins that Hotte spotted down on the beach.

It wasn’t 8pm yet when we had finished out work. Now we have four birds out with devices on, all in different colours so that Milford Sound’s cruise boat skippers can report sightings. The four of us hopped into our kayaks and paddled back over to the DC where we will camp out for the night.

One more thing before I sign off… being down I the underwater observatory at night can be quite spectacular. But the sheer mass of fish around the windows when we shone our torches out was mind boggling. Add in a constant swirl of salp chains that drifted through the chaos of fish bodies and you have a perfect visualization for a very productive oceanic ecosystem.

It more and more seems like a very good year for Milford Sound’s penguins.

Last night Robin & Giselle indeed made it through Homer Tunnel without delay. So now I’m convinced that the road closure the night before was just put into place by a higher force to prolong Hotte and my already endless journey from the West Coast.

Anyhoo, today we hopped on the 11am Southern Discoveries Milford Sound cruise which would take us to the Discovery Centre… which started with a sumptuous buffet lunch. Luckily we had one and a half hours to digest the food while cruised the entire length of Milford Sound. Never bad to start field work with a bit of relaxed tourist activities. Although our field outfits set us apart from the rest of the passengers on board.

We arrived at the Discovery Centre – or short DC – around 1pm. Before heading over to Harrison Cove, we headed down into the observation chamber to have a look at what’s going on below Harrison Cove’s surface. And the sheer amount of fish and more specifically fish larvae was quite a sight. Whether this high abundance of potential penguin food was a weird one day congregation of fish or a good representation of fish biomass present in Milford Sound this year, I don’t know. But certainly, our first impression is that we’re in for another fantastic season for the Milford Sound tawaki

After a while, Andrea Faris, manager of the DC and the person who got us to work in Milford Sound, took us over to Harrison Cove in their new stabicraft style tender which goes by the name – tadaaa! – ‘little tawaki’.

Even though this is the third season we work with penguins of Harrison Cove, the lush forest, the over saturation of green, still don’t fail to amaze me. This is the perfect representation of a rain forest.

It also means that most tawaki nests are even more difficult to access than at the West Coast. The penguins breed in caves and rock crevices. Some of the nests are virtually inaccessible; only by shoving a 360° camera down a tiny hole we may get a chance to see those nests.

We found 19 nests on day one, which is a new record in nest numbers. Last year at the end of the field work we had found 18. Not only that, more than half of the nests still have two chicks, all of a considerable size. With tawaki considered ‘obligate brood reducers’ that lose either one of their eggs or chicks, this is quite unusual. It certainly indicates that there is a lot of food out in the fiord.

Oh, and we managed to deploy the first GPS dive logger. When I say ‘we’ I actually mean Robin and Giselle. The two will be manning the fjord for the next couple of weeks when Hotte and I head back to the West Coast the day after tomorrow.

We emerged from the bush in the late afternoon. And after it had been drizzly when we jumped into the thick greenery, the weather had now cleared and the Harrison Cove scenery had changed considerably too. We were picked up by Jake from Southern Discoveries and returned to the DC.

What an epic journey that was. Three days ago, on Saturday, we left Neils Beach to head down to Milford Sound. The timing was perfect. After almost an entire week of fantastic spring weather, the sky over the West Coast was grey and dull – and it rained.

With the weather forecast for Milford Sound pretty crappy too for the next couple of days, the decision was made to do a little detour to Dunedin, spend a night at home and then carry on to Fiordland on Sunday.

Sunday morning, we climbed back into Eric, are good old Land Cruiser and hit the road again. Destination: Milford Sound. In the afternoon we arrived in Te Anau, picked up the leys for the DOC house in the Milford settlement and grabbed something to eat before embarking on the last leg of our journey along the Milford road.

It was windy as hell and the mountains across lake Te Anau were shrouded in thick clouds. Not far out of Te Anau the road sign informed us about the road condition to Milford Sound.

Avalanche hazard along the Milford road! Road closed until tomorrow morning!! Great!!! So back to Te Anau we went, found ourselves a cheap Motel for the night and drowned our sorrow with far too expensive beer at the local pub.

When we got up this morning, the road was still closed. But after breakfast we hit the road regardless. We ignored the still persisting message saying “Road Closed” and rolled northwards. Which was a good call because closer to the Homer tunnel another road sign now explained that the Milford Road was now open.

We made ourselves at home in the DOC house. But it was too late to go out to Harrison Cove today. So we chill and await the arrival of Robin and Giselle. Well catch up with Andrea from Southern Discoveries tonight and start field work in Milford Sound once and for all tomorrow.

Jeepers. It has been one of those days. The day started off not that dissimilar from yesterday and we only headed out to Jackson Head in the afternoon. It was another warn and sunny day out on the West Coast, but that did not prevent things from turning a bit southward.

It started when I checked one of the stoat traps along the track to Jackson Head east. A root decided to have a wrestling contest with my foot and won, which send me flying forward banging my right knee on the only rock within a country mile of soft forest floor. It took me quite some time to regain my composure and continued my walk, if in a rather limpy manner.

We found our second logger bird on the nest and we swiftly removed the device from the brave penguin. All good here.

Then sunset. It got dark. I grabbed my torch that I have dangling around my neck whenever I’m in the field. Problem was… there was no torch dangling around my neck this time. Cripes. Well, what do I have a spare head torch for. Huh? The batteries in that one are empty. No worries, I got a whole box of spare batteries in my bag. Only… the box wasn’t there. It wasn’t anywhere and I likely lost it somewhere on the rocks when I grabbed penguin gear for logger recovery.

So it’s dark, and I don’t have any light. So Hotte gives me his spare torch, which happens to be a real crappy handheld thing. And we have three more loggers to deploy. Yay.

We get to the cave below the rock arena where our three logger candidate nests are located. But… none of the females were at home. To find that out, I had to climb on all fours into the cave through centuries of penguin poop. And I dropped the handheld torch which I had been carrying between my teeth. I tried to wipe it clean as best as I could but inevitably ended up with the taste of penguin poop in my mouth while we were attaching a GPS logger on a female tawaki from a neighbouring nest. We got a second device on a bird too. So, it wasn’t all bad.

But my knee is swollen and throbbing, my box of spare batteries is lost forever, and I can’t get the taste of penguin poop out of my mouth no matter how often I brush my teeth.

After a rather relaxed start to the day… no, let me rephrase that. After we did nothing other than house cleaning, office work, preparing our next GPS Loggers, and taking long naps until late afternoon, it was time to head out to Jackson Head to get our first GPS loggers back. And deploy the three new ones.

The two penguins with trackers on their backs are both from the sub-colony we call Popi’s Plaza. What we had to do was sit on the shore and wait for them to come home. We try to recover devices before the penguin enter their breeding areas. On one hand they are easier to catch outside of the thick vegetation. On the other hand, we do not cause a stir within the breeding colony, freaking out penguins unrelated to our activities.

The actual process of device recover follows an easy if somewhat unnerving pattern.

We sit hidden behind some rocks and observe the foreshore. As the sun approaches the horizon, penguin start to pop out of the water and scramble over the rocks to their breeding colonies.

But that makes it sound like as if the birds would show rather determined activity. They don’t.

They would walk a few metres and then stop to have a look around or start to preen extensively.

All the while we are straining our eyes to see if any of the birds carry the priced package. The problem is, they tend to show you their bellies. And it requires a lot of patience before you can finally catch a glimpse of their back side… and see that there is nothing.

Often when a logger bird finally shows up, you only catch a glimpse of the device and the last moment. And then it gets hectic.

Well, until 7pm we managed to recover one of our two devices. And we were damn lucky. The bird – or its partner – had really done a job on the logger. The tape we attached the device with was in tatters and was literally hanging on the penguin by a thread. Well, a feather. At any rate, it wouldn’t have taken the bird much to preen off the device and that would have been the end of that.

But, as it is, we have our first logger back.

With a spring tide rolling in around midnight, we had until 9pm to deploy three more loggers. So we made our way through the darkness and thick vegetation to an area we call the rock arena. Here several of the breeding females were feeding their chicks. Once they had finished their job three of them volunteered to carry GPS diver loggers for a few days.

It took us an hour and a half to deliver our pay load so that we had to hurry up to get back out before the tide rolling in cut us off from home.

Because of that, we could not have a look for the second logger bird at Popi’s Plaza. We will have to get here tomorrow. When we will also try to deploy three more devices before we finally head over to Milford Sound on Saturday.

While we were having breakfast a loud bang shook Neils Beach. Next thing we knew there were flames billowing from the airfield no more than 200m from the house we’re staying in. It turned out that the heli-shed of Greenstone Helicopters went up in flames. Greenstone have helped out the tawaki project from the beginning and it was sad to hear that the helicopter that was destroyed was the one that got us to and from Gorger River last November. Luckily, no one was hurt, but the heli shed and the adjacent packing facility of Barnbay Fishing burned to the ground in less than half an hour. Hopefully nothing was lost that isn’t covered by insurance.

In the afternoon, we did another round through the tawaki breeding areas to check on our monitored nests. Sadly, we lost another four nests. Again there were signs of predation… or at least scavenging. Judging from the messy job that was done on two chicks from one nest, I would say that a possum had a go at these unfortunate birds. But… question is whether the possum actually killed them. Hopefully, trail cameras operated by the West Coast Penguin Trust can shed some light on this mystery.

The remaining nests, however, look all pretty good. In one nest there we found two big chicks, a rather unusual sight for any crested penguin as they usually lose one of their two chicks a few days after hatching. It probably is a sign for good foraging conditions at sea this year.

When we headed back out, we spotted one of our logger birds returning home. The device will come off tomorrow.

And, finally, to round of this day of tragedy, my camera played up so that some really stunning video footage and photos recorded today are lost. Well, compared to what we witnessed this morning, I probably should not complain.

We can’t say that the weather isn’t on our side – when not deploying GPS loggers, that is. Another stunner of a spring day and according to the weather man, the West Coast is the warmest place in New Zealand today.

We decided to have a look at Jackson Head’s eastern side. So far, we have been working on the western shores of the peninsula, where the coast faces the open sea. The eastern shores look at Jackson Bay and the alpine ranges on the horizon. It is on this side that almost 40 years ago John Warham from Canterbury University did the first comprehensive study of tawaki breeding behaviour. I’m not sure if anyone has visited those penguin colonies since.

Low tide was conveniently just after lunchtime so that we could walk round the foreshore to look for these penguin colonies. We had no idea where they were located, but penguin calls told us where we had to dive into the bush to find them. I was particularly curious to see if the colonies on this side of Jackson Head also show signs of predator impacts. If anything, I would think that this part of the peninsula is easier to access for stoats and possums.

The vegetation proved to be even nastier than on the western slopes. Besides kiekie that tries to slice open every exposed part of skin with its blade like leaves, the bush is thick with supplejack vines, perfect to get entangled in, unless you’re penguin size of course.

The first small tawaki colony comprised of just four nests that are tucked away in the roots of an old fallen tree. When I say four nests, I actually mean to active nests and two nests that might have been active. In one nest a single male penguin guarded an empty hollow, and one floor up, a pair of tawaki huddled around another empty nest bowl. As neither eggs or chicks were in sight this could mean that they were non-breeders – or that the nest contents were taken by predators. I suspect it’s more the latter.

The further we got towards the point of Jackson Head, signs of undisturbed breeding became more prominent. Eggs that rolled out of nests, dead chicks that rolled out of the nests and died which is normal in crested penguins where usually only the first-born chick survives. And as morbid as that may sound… this is good because it means that no possum or stoat has been around to scavenge – or kill chicks. So it seems, that predators may indeed be a problem for the penguins over on this side as well. But there are tawaki sub-colonies that are not – yet – affected by it.

As the sun started to set on the other side of Jackson Head we made our way back to Jackson Bay. Bottlenose dolphins zoomed past and tawaki started to show up to get back to their nests.

We can’t say that the weather isn’t on our side – when not deploying GPS loggers, that is. Another stunner of a spring day and according to the weather man, the West Coast is the warmest place in New Zealand today.

We decided to have a look at Jackson Head’s eastern side. So far, we have been working on the western shores of the peninsula, where the coast faces the open sea. The eastern shores look at Jackson Bay and the alpine ranges on the horizon. It is on this side that almost 40 years ago John Warham from Canterbury University did the first comprehensive study of tawaki breeding behaviour. I’m not sure if anyone has visited those penguin colonies since.

Low tide was conveniently just after lunchtime so that we could walk round the foreshore to look for these penguin colonies. We had no idea where they were located, but penguin calls told us where we had to dive into the bush to find them. I was particularly curious to see if the colonies on this side of Jackson Head also show signs of predator impacts. If anything, I would think that this part of the peninsula is easier to access for stoats and possums.

The vegetation proved to be even nastier than on the western slopes. Besides kiekie that tries to slice open every exposed part of skin with its blade like leaves, the bush is thick with supplejack vines, perfect to get entangled in, unless you’re penguin size of course.

The first small tawaki colony comprised of just four nests that are tucked away in the roots of an old fallen tree. When I say four nests, I actually mean to active nests and two nests that might have been active. In one nest a single male penguin guarded an empty hollow, and one floor up, a pair of tawaki huddled around another empty nest bowl. As neither eggs or chicks were in sight this could mean that they were non-breeders – or that the nest contents were taken by predators. I suspect it’s more the latter.

The further we got towards the point of Jackson Head, signs of undisturbed breeding became more prominent. Eggs that rolled out of nests, dead chicks that rolled out of the nests and died which is normal in crested penguins where usually only the first-born chick survives. And as morbid as that may sound… this is good because it means that no possum or stoat has been around to scavange – or kill chicks. So it seems, that predators may indeed be a problem for the penguins over on this side as well. But there are tawaki subcolonies that are not – yet – affected by it.

As the sun started to set on the other side of Jackson Head we made our way back to Jackson Bay. Bottlenose dolphins zoomed past and tawaki started to show up to get back to their nests.

As planned we went out late last night to deploy GPS dive loggers on female tawaki. And as forecasted it started pouring down about two hours before we left our research base in Neils Beach. Despite getting wet to the bone, we managed to fit two devices to penguins. Now let’s hope the tape we use to attach the devices holds. Applying it in such wet conditions is always a bit iffy. But I consider this a good start.

Because we returned around 2am we took it easy this morning.

Tonight, high tide is going to be around 9pm. With the current swell that hits the coast this means that we can’t get in or out of the penguin breeding areas between 6pm and midnight. So no logger deployments tonight. This is why we hoped to find any volunteering penguins in the afternoon.

By lunchtime, the weather had cleared up once again – welcome to the West Coast, or indeed, New Zealand. We prepared three more logger packs and headed out to Jackson Head. But, alas, no females anywhere in sight. So no loggers out today.

But on our search for females, we made a worrying discovery. Three of our 30 monitored nests have failed already. In a bad year, that can happen. But firstly all the environmental signals point to this being a good year for the penguins, and secondly the nests were all empty. No trace of eggs or chicks. 50 metres below the ‘apartment building’ we found a penguin egg with obvious bite marks. So either, the egg was scavenged by a possum after it had rolled out of the nest. Or we may have a stoat problem again.

We decided to keep a close eye on what is happening at Jackson Head. So we have abandoned our plan to go to Milford Sound tomorrow and will instead check all breeding area for signs of another stoat invasion.

We arrived at Neils Beach, the small settlement about 5 km from Jackson Head late yesterday after witnessing substantial flooding along the Jackson Bay Road. The weather over here was really bad the past few days. I think our 24 hours delay for our departure was a good call.

Indeed it was, as today the West Coast enjoys beautiful blue skies and sunshine. Perfect conditions to go out and get cracking with our work.

Just after lunch we made our way out to the penguin breeding areas with the intention to deploy a few more nest cameras and to fit the first GPS dive loggers on chick feeding female tawaki. As could be expected, we found mainly male penguins guarding their small chicks or incubating eggs that should hatch very soon. On a couple of nests we found pairs, where the females had returned early to feed their young. Access to these nests was difficult, so that we did not bother these birds to stick devices on the females. Later afternoon, early evening seens most of the females return to feed their chicks, so that that time of the day is much better for what we want to do.

Unfortunately, the tide was not on our side. High tide was at 8pm. This combined with the fact that there was a considerable swell hitting Jackson Head meant that we could not get in or out of the penguin breeding areas between 5pm and 11pm.

So it will be another nightshift for us. We’ll head out around 10.30pm tonight. Hopefully we will manage to bring out three devices. Problem is, that the weather forecast predicts rain for tonight. Hard to imagine when you look at the blue skies that stretch over the West Coast at the moment.

Then again, this is the West Coast. So we better brace ourselves for a wet evening.